FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 43
of the placement of other faiths in Islam's conception of the world. He
uses the term budd to denote the local religious structure in Sind, but
this term should be read more broadly as polytheism. It is an Arabiza-
tion of the Persian but, which can refer to both image as well as temple.
Baladhuri clearly states, "Everything they worship is the budd. The
sanam (image) is also budd.^11 The other term that appears in Baladhuri
is samani (from the Sanskrit sramana), which specifically refers to Bud-
dhists in other early Arabic accounts. Baladhuri thus confirms .the
presence of Buddhists in Sind.^54 Regarding this mixture of-polytheists,
Baladhuri's account shows none of Islam's reputed anxieties about idols
and idolaters. Baladhuri uses the word mushrikun (those who take
other gods) as a descriptor but without any extra gloss. Remarkably,
perhaps only for us, he repeatedly mentions but does not comment on
idols or statues of the Muslim campaigners, including one of Mu-
hammad bin Qasim and one-of the man who killecj Dahar.
The fourth point concerns the legal treatment of non-Muslim com-
munities in Sind. Baladhuri repqrts Muhammad bin Qasim to qave
declared that "The budd are like the churches of tp.e Christians and
the Jews and the fire-houses of the Magians."^55 What this comment re-
veals, at the very least for Baladhuri's text, is that the Muslim armies
recognized the sanctity of local sacred spaces. However, the exact legal
status of the local population remains unclear in Baladhuri's account.
Muhammad bin Qasim imposes a tax (khara;) on regions he takes by
treaty. From the context, this appears to be a tax based on land hold-
ings. Still, there is no mention of any punitive taxation for non-Muslims
or any other discriminatory legal regime for the local non-Muslim pop-
ulations. As we move into our examination of the thirteenth-century
account of the conquest of Sind, it will be fruitful to keep in mind this
report from the earliest Arabic sources. Further, in the narrative of Mu-
hammad bin Qasim's campaign, Baladhuri does not report any cases
of temple desecration.^56
The final point concerns the small overlap between Baladhuri and
sources frol\l Sind. The later Muslim campaigns described by Balad-
huri are confirmed in a fleeting epigraphic reference in Gujarat inscrip-
tions from 736-739 CE. They refer to Muslims as Tajika-a generalized
opponent of either central Asian or Arab descent-alongside two other
terms Turuska and Parasika.^57 The most detailed account emerges